Simviation Forums

You are NOT going to believe this;

By Bernhard Warner, European Internet Correspondent LONDON (Reuters) - Microsoft has announced it will shut down its Internet chat rooms in 28 countries, saying the forums have become a haven for sex predators. "The straightforward truth of the matter is free unmoderated chat isn't safe," said Geoff Sutton, European general manager of Microsoft MSN, told Reuters. From October 14, the software giant will shut down its MSN chat services in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and much of Latin America, forcing millions of message board users to find alternative online forums to discuss the topics of the day. In those regions, said Microsoft, the chat was free and unsupervised, giving rise to a nefarious element that bombarded users with "spam" mail, much of which was pornographic and, in some cases, allowing paedophiles to prey on children. The decision has triggered a heated debate among free speech advocates, children's rights groups and Microsoft rivals about the proper way to police online forums, which predate the Web itself and have been critical to the Internet's growth as a mass medium.

Err like there are a couple of paedophiles, and a few million innocent users! Oh people in the US will be delighted to know that they will still have Chat, but they have to pay for it ::)

Incredible isn't the word.
Ozzy

Thats unreal...its not like M$ to make money on something!  ;)

The sad fact is that whilst these perverts do use the chat rooms by far the majority of victims are attacked by someone that they know and trust in the real world.

M$ being cynical and using parents fears as a marketing ploy I think.

Will

 I can only imagine how bad it must be in an unmoderated chat room, even the moderated ones I've been too are pretty useless, there are so many inmature people that frequent those places that you can't carry on a reasonable conversation without someone being rude, and it seems someone always turns the conversation into a shouting match.
 I avoid chat rooms at all costs, so if M$ wants to charge people to use them, it will not effect me in the least, it might actually stop some of these punks from having access to them and improve the overall atmosphere.

 microsoft are only covering their backs against liability and that stuff and you can't really blame them. . .

I go with Polynomial.
This is a good way to show the face of MS as being 'involved, responsible and not afraid to act if needed'. Specially after the widespread, public humiliation they were handed out because of the virus infections and security issues, last months.

So, are all these bonehead chatroomies coming to regular moderated forums now?

(Is it illegal, if you know there is lots of pedofiles who are sexually involved, to have them 'watched' by software, maybe activated through certain government services? I mean, it can be done with hackers, can't it? Or is that non-comparable?)

I suppose we are gonna pay the price of safety. I have [glb]NEVER[/glb]been in a chatroom anyway  ;D
Dan
Wales, Uk

Ozzy, you're wrong, I DO believe it. lol  (Nothing surprises me anymore.  It sucks.)

Seriously though, think about the other side of this.  Had they NOT closed the chat rooms down, and some kid got molested, imagine what people would be saying then!

Unfortunately, I don't see how they had any other choice.

Besides, we've still got SimV, isn't that what matters?  

Well, this is my chatroom which is the whole reason for my beliefs in voluntary censorship & keeping things civilised. I spend so much time here I don't have time to go anywhere else. LOL

It seems a tad drastic but in the circumstances I don't see what else M$ could do in this instance. They will get flak whatever they do.

Well if they spent a bit of bread, they could get in people to police the chatrooms.
A number of British service providers do this....

Ozzy

I have just E-Mailed my service provider, Freeserve, to see if it is possible for them to stop ALL mail from being downloaded to my Outlook Express in-box.
I can't cope with all the mass of junk/porno mail I have to delete every minute I'm on line now...!
Life is too short... ...!

I have never had any interest in Chat Rooms, always seemed a bit dodgy to me... ...!

I have an awful feeling that our Internet Mail service, etc, is slowly going down the pan.. ...!

It seems that the only safe way of trasferring mail now is via the Simviation Instant Message facility.
There are only a few people who contact me via E-Mail, so giving them details of Simviation seems a sensible way of keeping in contact via Instant Messaging rather than using the Microsoft E-Mail System...?

Cheers all... ...!
Paul.....(another load of junk just arrived...)... ...!
(England).

Fozzer. This might interest you. http://www.mailwasher.net/

I heard them talking about it on good ol' Radio 2 today. Check out the FAQ page. Unfortunately it's no use to me as it doesn't work with AOL.

Fozzer. This might interest you. http://www.mailwasher.net/

I heard them talking about it on good ol' Radio 2 today. Check out the FAQ page. Unfortunately it's no use to me as it doesn't work with AOL.

Hi Doug.... ...!
WOW....!
...another Terry Wogan, Ken Bruce, Jeremy Vine, Radio 2 enthusiast... ...!
The Radio Channel for "oldies with wooly jerseys"...
FANTASTIC...LOL...LOL...LOL..!
I did hear the "Mailwasher" being mentioned today...!
I'll give the download a try...!

Cheers Doug... ...!
Paul.
(Hereford).